The Sad Story of Henry was the episode of the BBC Children’s Television series which was broadcast on 14 June 1953.
It is based on the story of the same name and Edward, Gordon and Henry from The Railway Series book, The Three Railway Engines.
This would be just 12 days after the Queen’s Coronation – a memorable occasion – a marvelous and spectacular BBC Television broadcast. Wonderful and so well remembered by us all
Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends is by now one of the world’s most iconic and beloved children’s TV shows. Originally adapted from the Reverend Wilbert Awdry and his son Christopher Awdry’s Railway Series stories, the TV series began airing in 1984 and has continued in some form or another through to the 2020s. While this is certainly the most famous adaptation of the Awdrys’ train tales, it was not the first, having been preceded by a live BBC broadcast in 1953. Unfortunately, the technical difficulties associated with this adaptation would prevent a full series from being commissioned for the intervening thirty years.
In mid-1953, the BBC approached The Railway Series editor Eric Marriott and inquired about the possibility of adapting at least two stories to television. Marriott and Rev. Awdry approved the proposal on the condition that the adaptation be as faithful as possible, in particular to the authentic technical details. Thus, the broadcast was to be done using specially-modified 00 Gauge Hornby models of the actual engines pictured in the books, with a track layout and painted backdrops designed to ensure maximum faithfulness to the original illustrations. The script, however, was ‘freely adapted’ in order to fit the allotted ten-minute time slot. It was to be broadcast live from Lime Grove Studios on Sunday, June 14th, 1953.
For this initial attempt, the BBC had chosen to adapt “The Sad Story of Henry”, a suitably dramatic tale of the engine being bricked up in a tunnel after he refuses to leave it for fear of rain spoiling his new paint. The live adaptation (now renamed to “The Three Railway Engines”, presumably for viewers unfamiliar with the books) had to be put together within a month, with the custom model train setup not arriving in the studio until the final rehearsals. Not ideal for what was already a notably complex production for the time, also including superimposed rain and other effects overlaid by music and narration by Julia Lang.
On the day of the broadcast, the model movement was still said to be a bit jerky, but all started off well until one of the engines derailed, the train set operator having missed switching the points before the engine arrived at them. To the great surprise of viewers, including Marriott and Rev. Awdry, a human hand picked up the errant engine and put it back on the rails instead. It was noted that narrator Lang ‘struggled to improvise’ around the incident, but unfortunately, her actual words are not recorded.
The broadcast went on without further incident, but the derailment and its unexpected resolution attracted notice from several national newspapers. Rev. Awdry is recorded as being disappointed with many aspects of the adaptation, including the script changes (which added characters that were not in the original story), the jerky model movement and above all, the ‘elementary mistake’ of the incorrectly set points.
BBC Controller (head) of Programmes Cecil McGivern evidently agreed with the criticisms, issuing a furious memo in which he called the whole effort ‘pathetic’.[1]
Awdry demanded guarantees that a similar blunder would not happen in the second broadcast, scheduled for June 28th. Instead, presumably thanks to the official scorn, it was put on hold and later cancelled. Although numerous attempts were made to revive the Railway Series for television, all were unsuccessful until the current series began production three decades later.
